House of Shadows (26 page)

Lawrence kept his face neutral. ‘Sir Henry. I have been asked by the good prior to have this wagon-load delivered personally.'

‘Ah. The same man who reported that your prior might have been involved in Mortimer's escape.' Baldwin smiled coldly. ‘It is not a task to your taste?'

‘Our prior has been installed to replace our poor brother Walter, who has been ripped from our fold. Naturally I seek to obey my prior.'

‘
Naturally
,' Baldwin said drily. ‘I would think many of your comrades would be as unhappy as you about the turn events have taken.'

‘None of us is content. But we have the gratification of knowing that at least we are serving God in our own way, no matter what the powerful in the land may think or want. And God willing, our prior may one day return to us.'

‘God willing,' Baldwin murmured in agreement.

 

‘Was that any help to us?' Simon enquired.

Baldwin splashed into a puddle and gazed down at his boot in disdain. ‘These were once good leather,' he muttered inconsequentially. ‘Hmm? Yes, I think so. Do you consider that man to be a murderer?'

‘Lawrence? No!'

‘Nor do I,' Baldwin said. ‘And I think that itself makes our task more easy.'

Simon glanced at him. ‘What now?'

‘Now we see if another fellow can help us,' Baldwin said with a smile, and turned to the gatehouse. ‘A man utterly devoted to Lawrence or his old prior. Someone who is stronger, who could drag Pilgrim's body down into that hollow, but who's also young enough to be able to use stilts. Ah! Porter! We should like to see the novice, Brother John. Is he about today?'

‘No. He's off to look at the kiddles.'

‘Let me guess, he would use a small boat to reach them?'

‘Trust a lad like him with a boat? He can make use of stilts like his master the cellarer!'

‘Of course! Tell me, where would I see him?'

‘Best to wait here. He'll be returning before long. Can I fetch you a quart of ale?'

 

William looked about him.

There had been a time, when he was a lad, when he had looked about himself in this room and seen only magnificence. There had been tapestries and fine pewter, silver catching the light from the fire in the middle of the floor, cushions on the benches, and great hounds pacing in and out. It had been a place of enormous comfort and elegance.

As he grew older, he came to this little manor less and less. He had the larger properties, and as his mercantile ventures bore fruit he would travel abroad more often, often dreaming idly of times when he would be able to settle down and find a wife. And then he had met Cecily.

She had been the beauty he had looked for all his life. A tall woman, with flashing blue eyes and dark, Celtic hair, she entranced him. So much so that he had mentioned her to his old companion, Henry. And then, the next time he saw Henry, Henry already had her heart. It all but broke William's.

Over time, he had healed. He had found dear Isabelle, who had been a congenial spouse who had borne him young William and two more children, and William had found his star rising with the influence of his master, Piers Gaveston. The king himself recognized William.

But then Gaveston was caught by his enemies and murdered. It was a terrible shock. Suddenly William learned what it was to lose his patron. Only three years
later, the famine struck, and Isabelle and the children died. Christ's bones, but that had been a black time! Only eight years, but it was as though he had been living a different life.

It was after the famine that Henry grew in influence. And only eighteen months ago, William first clapped eyes on Henry's daughter, and in her face he saw the woman he had wanted to marry all those years before. Juliet ensnared him with her calm, elegant beauty, her ready wit and cheerfulness. He couldn't resist her.

There was a thundering on his door, and he tutted to himself. ‘Perce, see who it is.'

When they had been young, he and Henry had been inseparable. The two of them had revelled in the same alehouses, whored after the same wenches in the stews, even fought together in the same actions when they came against pirates. Yet once Henry took his woman, all his love for his friend had dissipated like smoke before a wind. There was nothing left.

There was a shriek from the yard outside, and William spun on his heel in time to see Perce stumble inside. His hand was at his temple, and he walked with a dazed, unseeing expression. He entered, tottered, and then slowly fell to the floor, like a tree subsiding after the axes had hewn away one side, spinning a little to crash down on his back.

The men sent to protect and guard him were at the door, but they were reluctant to stand in the path of the force that entered now.

‘So, William,' Sir Henry said. He thrust the war-hammer into his belt, casting a look about him. ‘I think you'd best come with me.'

 

Lawrence walked up the lane towards the bridge, but all the while his mind was fixed on the knight waiting at the priory's gate. At last, with a sigh, he gave instructions to
the carter about where to go with the fish, and with a heavy heart he turned back, walking along the river bank to the kiddles. There was one figure still there, a tall lad with his robes bound up to keep them dry, the stilts he wore hidden under the murky waters.

‘John? Come here a moment.'

 

William felt the rope pulling at his throat again, but there was little he could do to protect himself as the horses trotted onwards. It was only fortunate that he had not lost all his strength.

Ironic. That he should have been innocent of crimes, that his greatest enemy should seek to destroy him, when his only offence had been to love the same woman and then love her daughter. He married her, and the result? She died, his son died, and now he was to die as well. For William had no doubt in his mind that this must be Henry's intention. The man was determined to remove him.

He was here between two horses, a rope about his neck gripped in Henry's fist, while other men-at-arms rode about him. His hands were bound behind him, his wrists already chafing, but the pain was bearable compared with the anguish of the losses he had already suffered.

They had left his manor as soon as William had submitted to being tied, the men supposedly left to guard him surprisingly quiet in the face of Henry's force. There was no point in their being killed to protect a felon. That much was obvious enough. And William had hardly covered a hundred paces from his gate when the little force passed him, one of them on his own horse. The man stared down at William, spat into the road and sped off towards the bridge and the city.

 

‘He's coming back,' Simon said.

Brother Lawrence carried a large wicker basket, a
pair of stilts lying over the top. ‘Good day again.'

He set the wicker basket on the ground, where it leaked brown mud and water. The stilts rolled from it.

‘They look a handy tool,' Baldwin commented.

‘On the flats they can be useful, and in the shallows.'

‘And if a man wished to scare all the locals away from a place, such a device would make him appear greatly taller.'

‘It would take more than—'

‘Yes. Perhaps a good grey cloak and hood would be needed also.'

Lawrence nodded and sighed. ‘You have learned much.'

‘The night that the rogue Mortimer escaped from the Tower, he came this way. We know that. Someone was out here pretending to be a ghost to scare all the people away. You.'

‘Yes. I confess. I walked about the marsh for some nights before the feast to remind people of the ghost and scare them away.'

‘Elena's husband was killed. By you?' Baldwin demanded harshly.

‘Me? No. But others were there, and if they met a man in a chance encounter, blood could have been shed.'

‘You say one of Mortimer's men did it?'

‘I say one of his men
could
have killed Elena's man. I do not know. That I swear on the Gospells.'

Baldwin eyed him narrowly. He spoke with conviction and apparent honesty, and Baldwin did not think him a murderer – and yet Brother Lawrence felt his guilt. His subterfuge at reintroducing people to the idea of this ghost had indirectly led to deaths. Elena's husband, the girl, and Pilgrim. All dead for nothing.

‘Where is John?'

‘Now? I am not sure. Some distance away.'

‘You advised him to flee?'

‘All he did he did for good motives.'

‘I didn't think you would murder a girl, even if you thought she had betrayed your prior. That was the act of a younger, angrier man.'

‘You may think so,' Lawrence said calmly. ‘It is between him and God.'

‘Juliet told her father about the priory helping Mortimer to escape, and then he told the king's men. That led to Prior Walter being arrested.'

‘I think so.'

‘And your novice knew of this. He heard Juliet tell you.'

‘She was proud of telling her father about the escaping men, but she told me in order to apologize, I think. She never expected the prior to be taken. She was very young.'

‘And innocent. But a lad like John, who was raised to the concepts of honour and obedience, he took a different view, didn't he? He thought her act was disgraceful treachery, rewarding the priory's kindness in marrying her by destroying the prior.'

Lawrence looked away. ‘I can say nothing. My lips cannot be opened except to God. But whether it is true or not, John has the benefit of clergy. You may not touch him.'

 

Sir Henry was aware of the eyes on him all the way along to the bridge. There, he fully expected to be accosted, but the porter at the gate meekly accepted his words about his capturing a known felon, and he rode on with his little force to his home.

‘You should have stayed away, William. I didn't want to have to hurt you, but you couldn't keep away, could you? What, did you want to upset me by stealing my daughter? Eh? Perhaps you did. Maybe you didn't even
give me a thought. Well, you should have done, old friend. You should have. Because now I've got you here, and you're going to pay for the death of my little girl. And because you took her without my permission, first I'll have you castrated!'

And he clambered from his horse and tugged on the rope, pulling William onwards.

William had been in a daze while he spoke, and only now, as Henry drew him towards the stables, did he realize what was happening.

‘Christ Jesus! No!'

The men grabbed him and pulled him bodily to the heavy wooden table set out by the brazier, the farrier's tools set out nearby. And Henry smiled to hear the screams of his old friend.

‘You'll rot in hell for what you did to my daughter, William.'

 

‘Sir Baldwin! Thank God I have found you! Sir Henry, he has come and taken William. You must help us. My lord bishop is in Westminster, and I can't get him…'

‘Tell me all,' Baldwin said urgently.

The man explained quickly how the men had arrived at William's house, beaten down Perce and dragged William from the place.

‘Where are they now?'

Baldwin took his horse, and then stopped a man with a small piebald rounsey. ‘I am keeper of the king's peace, acting for my Lord Bishop Stapledon. I must have your horse.'

‘You can't take it, I—'

In answer, Baldwin drew his sword. Its wicked blue blade flashed in the sun. ‘Retrieve your horse from Bishop Stapledon's house later this day. For now, it is needed. Simon? Mount. Lawrence – send a messenger as swiftly as you can to my lord Bishop Stapledon's
house and tell him of this. He must send men to Sir Henry's house if we are to save William.'

The man left with alacrity at the sight of the sword, a fact that pleased Simon no end. Too many men would have argued and drawn their own steel at being ordered to give up their horse.

Soon they were cantering illegally and dangerously along the thronging streets. Simon was almost brained by a low-hanging merchant's sign, and then, peering over his shoulder at that near catastrophe, almost rode into a tavern's sign. After that he gazed ahead resolutely.

As they turned into the house's yard, the screaming assailed their ears.

Baldwin had sheathed his sword after taking the horse for Simon. Now he drew it again and clapped spurs to the beast. It leaped forward, narrowly missing a groom and making him dart away with a shocked curse.

‘Free him
immediately
in the name of the king!' Baldwin roared.

Simon was already on the ground. His sword was out, and it came to rest at the throat of the man holding shears near William's groin. ‘Put that down,' he hissed.

There were seven men about the yard. There was a man at William's arms, holding them by the rope that bound them, while a man gripped each leg, holding them apart. The man between them was very still, his eyes fixed on the steel at his throat.

Baldwin saw Sir Henry and his son standing a short distance away.

‘Tell your men to release him, Sir Henry. If any harm comes to him, I will have you pay for it. Release him, I say!'

‘You could fall from your horse here in my yard, and no one need know what happened to you,' Sir Henry scoffed. ‘I could have you dropped by arrow, and all would declare you had an accident. Go and leave us.'

‘This man is innocent! He did not kill your daughter!'

Timothy stepped forward. ‘So? He may not have stabbed her, but he raped her.'

‘A man cannot rape his wife,' Baldwin grated.

‘He didn't have permission to marry her. He took my sister and persuaded her to lie with him so he could insult my family, but there was no marriage – I deny that she was married!'

Baldwin looked about him at the men standing still and quiet. ‘Sir Henry, you are safe. You are a friend of my Lord Despenser, and anything you do here today will be forgiven. But any man here,' he lifted his voice, ‘any
other
man here who attempts to hinder me or harm this man will be arrested and held by my authority as keeper of the king's peace. And if William is harmed, I will have you all taken and I will see you hanged.'